A person can receive many hundreds of electronic communications each day. The electronic communications can include electronic mail messages, voice mail messages, memoranda, documents, and so on. Because of the large number of communications, especially electronic mail messages, that a person can receive, it can be very time-consuming for a user to access and process all their communications. Indeed, because of the large number of electronic mail messages, it may be difficult for a user to identify an important electronic mail message that may need prompt attention out of all the electronic mail messages of lesser importance. To help locate messages, some electronic mail systems allow a person to specify the order in which electronic mail messages are displayed. For example, a person can specify that electronic mail messages be ordered based on time of delivery, sender, subject, and so on.
These techniques for ordering electronic mail messages and other communications do not, however, provide much useful insight into the importance of communications. For example, if an employee wants to view electronic mail messages that require prompt attention as soon as possible, the employee, short of reviewing all electronic mail messages, may need to rely on ordering based on the sender's designation of an electronic mail message as important. Such importance, however, reflects the importance to the sender, not necessarily the importance to the recipient. Moreover, importance does not reflect whether prompt attention is needed.
It would be desirable to provide a technique that would allow for communications to be automatically prioritized so a person can focus their attention on communications that are important or need prompt attention before focusing their attention on communications that are of lesser importance or do not need prompt attention.